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The Talent War Has a Side Nobody Is Talking About

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BONUS: A career ladder below partner.

By Hitendra Patil

Around the 150th conversation I had with firm owners about staffing – I counted for a while before I stopped – and a pattern became obvious. The firms struggling most with retention were almost always struggling with the same two things: no visible career path for anyone below the partner track, and no honest answer to the question of where the firm was going.

PE-backed firms have ready answers to both.

  • Career path: You will grow into a larger organization with more titles, more specialization and more upward movement.
  • Firm direction: toward scale, through acquisitions, toward an eventual liquidity event.

These are not always the right answers for every person. But they are clear answers. Clarity has real pull when someone is sitting across the table weighing their options.

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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

How to Overcome the CAAS-Chasm

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Insights alone are not enough.

By Hitendra Patil

Again, what is the difference between CAS and CAAS? Many firms feel stuck in the middle, offering advisory in theory but not in execution. That gap is the CAAS-Chasm. This article outlines the cycle that causes advisory initiatives to stall and helps you recognize the signs in your own firm. It’s the first step to breaking through.

Client accounting and advisory services (CAAS) is a fusion of traditional accounting services with advisory services that emerge from core accounting work. Think of CAS as a self-study course and CAAS as a guided workshop, but not necessarily in-person events.

CAAS is (needs to be) customized to individual client needs. CAAS must cater to the evolving demands of businesses in a changing economic, regulatory and technological landscape.
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How Niches Make Your Firm Stronger

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Become the only firm that matters to the clients worth keeping.

By Hitendra Patil

Specialization is the single decision that will do more for an independent firm’s long-term position than anything else. I know that is a strong statement. I also know it is the recommendation that gets the most pushback in the room.

The pushback usually sounds like one of three things. “We cannot afford to turn away work right now.” Or: “Our market is too small to specialize.” Or the version I hear most often: “We already serve a fairly focused type of client, we just have not put a name on it.” That last one is usually true, and it is also the starting point for everything.
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ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Is It CAS or CAAS?

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Here are 21 differences to help you and your clients.

By Hitendra Patil

Are you an accountant struggling to master your understanding of the difference(s) between “client accounting services (CAS)” and “client accounting and advisory services (CAAS)”?

You are not alone.

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TRUE Advisor® CAS Mastery, with Hitendra Patil
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As accountants, you often hear the terms “client accounting services (CAS)” and “client accounting and advisory services (CAAS)” pretty interchangeably, but how do you nail your grasp of the distinction(s) between the two?
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Staying Independent: Why Your Best Clients Hope You Turn Down Private Equity

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The conversations you should be having right now.

By Hitendra Patil

There is something that consistently gets missed in the private equity conversation, and I have watched it get missed from both sides: the people inside firms that took PE money, and the independent owners watching from outside.

Independent firms hold real structural advantages that the PE model works against by design. For the right clients, those advantages are not a secondary consideration. They are the core of the relationship.
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